11.26.06
‘You got it. I’m an artist. I’ll watch the woman.’
“I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all.
If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.”
Courtesy of Frederico Fellini.
Inspiration strikes again.
Friday we were paid a visit by the Smoothest and his blushing Brazilian wife, as well as some of his famiglia, namely Sister Sara and Cousin Lexi, as well as the Good Doctor Samvinho. We all settled into a few bottles of wine and caught up on the current events of life. DJ $ellout fired up the old laptop and had some of his pub buddies drop by, and without realizing it, we we’re in the midst of a full blown party.
I found myself chatting with Sara and Lexi as they gushed over my paintings, Sara berating me for selling a painting that she’s been coveting for years. Since it was sold, the only way we could show Lexi was to look at the stuff online. Which meant she and Sara spent an inordinate amount of time looking at my portfolio, analyzing it piece by piece. Lexi was fascinated by my ongoing series of ‘Hot Smoking women in Black & White’. I expressed some regrets, as I have been somewhat remiss in doing any painting for a while…
And she floors me by offering to pose.
During my day to day travels, I encounter a fairly good cross section of attractive women, who express a ‘half assed’ interest in posing for me, but Lexi was different, to the point of saying she’d stalk me if I didn’t call her - so after obtaining her number I swore that she’ll get a phone call within a week. Guess she’s serious about it.
By now, Sara who has been hinting that she’s hungry, starts grabbing people and announcing that she’ll start gnawing people’s fingers off if we don’t get food, asks me for a place we can go for food and drink. Hmmm. Tough one. So, I rally the troops, and lead them down to the Pub, thinking that the night after Turkey day, it should be fairly empty, and I can bring some biz to my favorite watering hole, and as we arrive, it looks perfect, plenty of available tables, the Director keeping watch over the waitresses, gossiping in the corner.
I leave the seating arrangements to the Smooth one, as I chat with the Director, who leads me to a table where Ninjascott and his wife Lydia are chatting with another couple, and since we haven’t seen each other since the Nantucket shoot, we’ve got some catching up to do. Its at this point The Smooth One announces that he can’t stay, the smell of cheese from the fondue is making his lame factor kick into overdrive and he has to depart before his chronic vaginal dryness kicks in, threatening us all with loud whining and petulance. I told the crew to call me as soon as they got somewhere (usually some grotty village pub with cheap tap beer) and really settled in (because the way the ladies were dressed, I quickly surmised that the grotty pub scenario would be unacceptable to the ladies, who wouldn’t appreciate sticky seats, lousy bathrooms and greasy buffalo wings), as I had some catching up to do with my film buddies.
The rest of the evening is spent, as per usual, discussing film, and the up and coming premiere of ‘Like a Springsteen Song’, which I am eager to see, as it is the project my film buddies were working on shortly before I joined the creative collective. And to cap it all off, when I’ve bid them farewell and wandered home to bed, DJ $ellout, working on his laptop informs that one of his guests expressed an interest in purchasing one of the paintings… It doesn’t get any better than that. Looks like I’m back in the painting gig…
